


Hello Cruel World

by fishoutofcamelot



Series: Fishoutofcamelot's Amazing Fic Giveaway [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Aithusa Deserves Better, Dragons, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, In Which Aithusa Doesn't Cure Merlin's Depression But She Sure As Hell Tries, Merlin Needs a Hug (Merlin), i know aithusa is male in canon but you know what?, im incapable of writing pure fluff, screw canon, so naturally theres gotta be some angst in there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishoutofcamelot/pseuds/fishoutofcamelot
Summary: Merlin's beginning to give up on destiny. Luckily, Aithusa is here to cheer him up.
Relationships: Aithusa & Merlin (Merlin)
Series: Fishoutofcamelot's Amazing Fic Giveaway [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579372
Comments: 8
Kudos: 142





	Hello Cruel World

**Author's Note:**

> This one was requested to me by @weprovideleverage, who was asking for a cute and fluffy fic with Merlin and the dragons. Well, it's...kinda fluffy-ish? And it's got Aithusa? I'm admittedly not super great at writing fluff, which is a problem because that's a big chunk of the requests I've been getting!  
> Not that it's a bad thing, of course. It's nice to challenge myself and branch out of my typical angsty goblin-hole.  
> Make sure to tell me what y'all think, and how I could improve my fluff-writing in the future!

The past few months had been a topsy-turvy ride of emotions.

Lancelot’s death dragged him to an all-time low, but he at least decided to be happy and optimistic in an effort to uphold his friend’s legacy. He was sad, but with help from Gwen and the knights, he was willing to move on.

Then he accidentally killed Arthur’s father, and Arthur said those damnable words – _I know now that magic is pure evil_ – and Merlin’s last vestiges of hope began to crumble away.

Then? Then came Aithusa. Right when Merlin was questioning if life would ever be good again, if Arthur would ever legalize magic, if he would die as oppressed as he had lived…Aithusa was born. And she was so, so beautiful. Scales shimmering in moonlight like a cluster of pearls found at the bottom of a dark, slimy ocean. Eyes so big and innocent and blue, blue like the Lake of Avalon and innocent like the young girl he’d buried there.

And for the first time since before Samhain, he was happy. Hopeful. For once, the future looked as pleasant as that baby dragon before him. And he cried. Not just because of how sweet and amazing the miracle of life was, but because of the future that lied ahead. Because of the future – the faith – that Aithusa represented.

And then came the incident with Caerleon, which was…mixed. Yes, he was disappointed that Arthur had killed an unarmed man like that, and he was proud of Arthur for choosing to spare the challenger in the end. But mostly he was just concerned. Concerned and paranoid and afraid and _on edge_ , because Agravaine knew how to mold Arthur like clay. And Merlin felt that same existential anxiety back when he was the only one who knew about Morgana’s treachery, and he found that he vey much did _not_ like it.

And then he was taken beaten with a flail. Separated from Arthur (although that bit was by his own design). Kidnapped. Mind controlled into destroying the one person he had risked and sacrificed everything else to protect. And hadn’t that been a blow to his confidence, knowing that the great and powerful Emrys was no match for some cranky little snake.

And then Gaius was taken.

And he was framed as a traitor.

And Agravaine was behind it, but only Merlin knew.

And Arthur sided with his uncle instead of Gaius. Instead of _Merlin_.

And Merlin was…a mess of emotions, to be honest.

He tried his best to take comfort in the fact that Gaius had been rescued, his name had been cleared, and almost all of it had a happy ending (besides the fact that Agravaine was still living and breathing among them, of course). But still, Merlin was shaken. Gaius was the only one left, aside from his mother, who _knew_ him – and Gaius had nearly died. If he lost Gaius, especially so soon after losing Lancelot…well, he wasn’t sure he would be able to handle it. Destiny be damned.

He tried to cheer up. Tried to make it up to Lancelot’s legacy, to live as Lancelot would have wanted him to. To smile and be happy as his friends needed from him in such trying times. So he wore his mask like it was a drug and never took it off except in the privacy of midnight.

Lamia. Lancelot’s revival. Gwen’s banishment. Arthur’s worsening mood. Agravaine’s increasingly powerful hold over his nephew. Bit by bit, pieces tore away from the corners of his mask, and with every passing day it grew harder and harder to be happy – or so much as _pretend._

Merlin flopped onto his bed, which groaned in protest against his careless weight (or lack thereof; he hadn’t been eating much lately). He was laying face-down, in a way that caused his pillow to suffocate him, but he didn’t have enough energy to turn his head to the side so he could breathe. He just laid there, body aching and eyes stinging.

Since the Gwen incident, Arthur’s Pratiness Meter had gone from a solid three to a twelve. Twelve! That was nearly as bad as he was in the early days. And naturally, as Arthur’s Pratiness increased, so too did Merlin’s workload. Not to mention all the Definitely-Not-Therapeutic Training Sessions they would engage in, no matter the weather or schedule. Not to mention how aggressive Arthur got during said training sessions. Not to mention how Merlin, whose task as Arthur’s servant was to _help_ him in those sessions, suffered physically from Arthur’s love of bashing things around in lieu of a coping mechanism.

And then he was serving double-time as both Arthur _and_ Elyan’s unofficial therapists, because both of them were broken up by Gwen’s departure in equal and opposite magnitude. And then there was Gwaine, who constantly needed to be fished out of taverns and debts because he was Gwaine and that’s how he was. And then Leon had a broken arm, and his best friend Gwen was gone, and Gaius was busy with Lady Orville’s tumultuous pregnancy, and Agravaine was getting bolder, and Morgana wanted both of his identities dead, and all the usual assassin-y suspects kept trying to kill Arthur, and –

Yes. Merlin was tired. He was tired and fed up and frustrated and so damn close to just giving up on this whole destiny thing. Perhaps he could say his mother was ill and leave for Ealdor, never to return. Or he could fess up to his magic and let Arthur lead him to the pyre, if only to put him out of his misery.

But no, Merlin couldn’t do that. As emotionally taxing as they could be, his friends needed him and he needed them. He could not and would not leave them unprotected. He’d hate himself if anything bad happened to them, and frankly he hated himself for even considering the idea in the first place.

So all Merlin could do was lay there on his bed and hope that with sleep would come some form of reprieve.

Tap, tap, tap.

Merlin groaned, and rolled over. Whoever wanted him would have to wait.

Tap, tap, tap.

He cracked open an eye, glaring at the darkness in suspicion. That didn’t sound like someone was knocking on the door. That sounded like someone – or some _thing_ – was knocking on the window.

Probably just a bird. He ignored it and went back to his shoddy attempt at sleep-

Tap, tap, tap.

Merlin sat up. “What the hell?”

There, hovering just outside his window, was a scaly white creature roughly the size of a cat.

“Aithusa?”

The dragon in question trilled happily, and tapped on the window with its reptilian tail.

“Alright, alright,” he grumbled, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and fumbling up to his feet. He hobbled blearily over to the window and fiddled with the latch. With a clicking noise, the window crept open, and Aithusa pushed her way in.

Purring and trilling like cheerful thunder, Aithusa flew up to his face and nuzzled his cheek with her own. He staggered back in surprise. “Whoa, whoa! Ease up, girl.”

Aithusa did not, in fact, ‘ease up’. She had a penchant for not doing what she was told unless he cranked out his dragonlord powers and forced her to, which he wasn’t exactly in the mood to do at this time of night. It took Merlin prying her away with his hands and setting her on his bed for her to finally let up. But even then, she still looked ready to pounce.

“Aithusa, no. Stay.”

She blinked up at him eagerly.

“Stay.”

She flapped her wings, poised and upright.

_“Sit_! Sit, you little -!”

Just as she rose up off the bed, Merlin clasped her body between both of his hands and dragged her back down again. This happened quite a few times, with Merlin growing more frustrated and Aithusa growing more eager with each time. Damnit, this was a _game_ to her.

All but giving up, he sat down beside her. Aithusa was as stubborn as Arthur. If her mind was set on cuddling him or whatever the hell she’d come here for, then there wasn’t much he could do but give in.

“Alright, fine,” he said. She was currently perched on his shoulder and rubbing her head against his jaw, tail coiled around the back of his neck. “Just be quiet, okay? Gaius will have me by the nails if he finds you in here.”

Carefully, so as to not jostle her too much, Merlin leaned his back against the wall and eased into his pillow. She let out a deep, rumbling purr, and readjusted her tail so it wasn’t squished against the wall.

Despite his prior exhaustion and frustration over having a real dragon in his room – which was located in the heart of a kingdom notorious for despising all things magic – Merlin couldn’t help but reach his fingers up to scratch under her chin. She cooed pleasantly into his ear in response.

The two of them sat there on his bed for what must have been forever. Every so often Aithusa would shift over to perch on a different part of his body, so long as it was always within quick reach of his hands. And when his arm grew too tired to keep petting her, she nestled into the folds of his neckerchief and pressed her body flat against his chest, seemingly soothed by the steady beating of his heart.

And he, in turn, found himself soothed by her presence near him. Just for a while, it was him and Aithusa, laying silently yet companionably in his dim bedroom, comforted by each other’s presence.

A film of clouds rolled in front of the moon, blocking out the room’s one source of light and plunging them both into a heavy darkness. Aithusa lifted her head up in surprise at the sudden change and mewled trepidatiously.

“It’s fine,” he hummed. “It’s just clouds.” Aithusa was not placated by this, however, and in fact began clawing at his neck, mewling. Her talons hadn’t yet fully set in so they weren’t sharp, but the sensation was still rough enough to hurt.

So Aithusa didn’t like the dark then, it seemed. And she wasn’t old enough to start breathing fire yet, which meant Merlin would have to ease her nerves himself somehow. He pulled her claws away from his bare skin and whispered out a spell into the chilly night.

With a flash of gold, the entire room was filled with dozens of hovering flames, as though the stars in the sky had been summoned between his earthly walls. Eagerly the flames flickered, roaming and fluttering about like a kaleidoscope of fireflies. Their warmth radiated through the air, a pulsing, throbbing blanket that descended upon the room and wrapped every corner and cranny with its relaxing vibrations. Vibrations that wormed themselves all the way into Merlin’s chest, into his ribs and his organs - and shot so sharply through the happy façade locked around his heart that it left him breathless.

This was life. This was beauty. These false stars were an extension of Merlin at his purest self. And yet, they were shunned. Banned. Punishable by death. And it would be at the hands of his own best friend, of all things. These flames were a glorious reprieve from the darkness, but they would also be his doom. One day, the truth would come out, and these flames would be what coaxed his broken heart into the afterlife.

Aithusa was unaware of his inner turmoil. She was too busy springing out of his neckerchief and chasing after the flames, trying to catch them with her fire-proof scales. Every time she snared one in her tiny claws, the flame would reappear somewhere else, and she’d frenzy after it again.

Merlin laughed at her antics. But anyone who knew him well would not recognize this as a ‘signature Merlin laugh'. His laughs were loud and boisterous and so bright that even the sun looked dim. But this? This was not so much a laugh as it was a somber, hopeless huff. The kind of noises a man made when his lover came to visit him on the night before his execution.

This noise cued Aithusa into his condition, and at last she turned her attention away from the enchanted embers and towards her dragonlord’s plight. She rested on his knee, curiously and compassionately staring into his eyes with her own.

“I’m scared,” he confessed at last, voice watery. He opened his mouth to vent out all the fears and worries and stresses that were drilling into his mind but found his throat, choked by tears, was unable to form the right words. “I’m scared.”

He drew his knees up to his chest, and with his knees came to dragon resting on them. Aithusa took advantage of their closeness to rub her small cheek against his. He stroked her back in return, to which she pleasantly preened.

Yet another forever passed, with Aithusa nuzzling him and Merlin weeping silently as he held her close. The gesture wasn’t an adequate substitute for a long vent with Lancelot, or a day at the markets with Gwen, and it didn’t even remotely cure the fear of dying alone and unloved at the hands of the one person who mattered most to him. In truth, nothing but Arthur’s acceptance could ease his lifelong, bone-quaking terror of exposure. And that was a long way off from ever happening.

But it _would_ happen. Merlin would see to it. Because Aithusa didn’t deserve to grow up in a world that hated her as Merlin had, nor did she deserve to be locked away like a beast as Kilgharrah had. Because Aithusa was good and pure and kind, and her birth was an omen foretelling the dawn of a new era. An era where people and creatures like them were no longer persecuted. An era where Merlin and Aithusa would be free at last.

Until then, they would remain unmarked in death as in life, and they would remain true to themselves only in the cover of secrecy, and they would lie to everyone they loved and hate themselves for doing so, and they would suffer recurring dreams of burning pyres and scowling faces (and hate themselves for thinking so lowly of their friends).

Yes, the present was bleak, and it would be a long time before that ever changed. But it would change nonetheless, and for the first time in months he truly believed that the future was bright.

The next morning, Gaius came to wake up Merlin for work, only to find a dragon on his bed and countless lights thrumming about. Noticing the tear tracks dried to his ward’s cheeks, he realized what had happened the night before, and gently closed the door behind him. The king could surely do without his servant for a few hours.


End file.
